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The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. 1 (archived PDF)
Air Force Historical Studies Office · 863 pages · text from the file's own layer
This is Volume One of The Army Air Forces in World War II, titled Plans and Early Operations, January 1939 to August 1942, edited by Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate. The University of Chicago Press first published it in 1948, and the Office of Air Force History reprinted it in 1983. The front matter explains how the AAF historical program was set up during the war. The index covers Pacific, Atlantic and European operations, and nothing in the text concerns unidentified aerial phenomena.
“United Press”36 pages
- p. 2 THE UNIVERSITYOF CHICAGOPRESS, CHICAGO8
LONDON
The University of Toronto Press, Toronto 5, Canada
Copyright 1948 by…
- p. 48 …An Associated Press dispatch of 10 October gave a contemporary
judgment of the importance of this…
- p. 55 …Air Service (Corps) found it difficult to press vigorously for reorgani-
zation and, by default, leadership…
- p. 56 …In 1919the W a r Department was pressing
for a drastic revision of the military establishment…
- p. 61 …It held that
there was no danger of an air attack on the United States and…
- p. 64 …GHQ Air Forcq a trial than to press for more radical measures,
and Howell’s group…
- p. 75 …Powerful air attacks resolutely pressed home could never be
completely stopped, but their effects could best…
- p. 98 …based air operations in defense of the United States
and its overseas posses~ions.’~T w…
- p. 99 …General Westover’s report concluded that “all Air Force units could
be concentrated on either coast…
- p. 130 …the Admiralty began to press for control of naval
air units, while the army attempted to…
- p. 149 …basic and advanced Responsibility for crew and unit train-
ing was vested in the GHQ Air…
- p. 164 …A m y air units in the
Territory existed primarily for the defense of this and…
- p. 176 …no military alliances
were made which would commit the United States to war; the plans
only…
- p. 278 …There were also grounds for hoping that heavy
bomber units now based on Darwin might increase…
- p. 285 …From 1938 the United
States had invoked sanctions against Japan in the form of moral em…
- p. 287 …Over-all Strategy and
lmmediate Deployment
On 2 2 December, the press announced dramatically the arrival…
- p. 289 …ground units sent
in that direction were not destined for immediate combat. No major
invasion of…
- p. 323 …Seizure of bases in Canada or Mexico for later attacks on the United States.
Capture of…
- p. 366 …United state^,^ and the British them-
selves were forced to withdraw some pilots from combat units…
- p. 380 …Upon the request of the Ferrying Command, the State Depart-
ment again pressed for an answer…
- p. 397 …the summer and fall, first as the United States Middle
East Air Force and later as…
- p. 430 …Attempts had been
made to replace these obsolete craft by purchase from the United
States, but…
- p. 440 …But as the Japanese pressed forward the Americans were given no
opportunity to get set. The…
- p. 463 …personnel that would be reassigned to infantry units whose rosters
already included many representatives of the…
- p. 552 …pines and more recently of American air units operating in the
Netherlands East Indies, he was…
- p. 560 …Moreover, examination proved
that most of the basic equipment of the units, including badly needed
trucks…
- p. 563 …Grady arrived from the
United States for a comprehensive survey of Indian resources with
reference to…
- p. 564 …TO C H I N A
graphic units, and unfavorable atmospheric conditions combined to
make high…
- p. 607 …Thus the AAF units engaged in the anti-U-boat war became
almost a t once…
- p. 628 …Army air bombardment units would operate
offensively in collaboration with the Royal Air Force, primarily
against…
- p. 658 …was to operate in the United Kingdom.14' All air
units initially based there were to…
- p. 683 …of the units of the infant Eighth until their departure for the United
Kingdom several months…
- p. 691 …The RAF proposed that American fighter units be integrated with
its own under a plan eventually…
- p. 748 …533.) By 1928he was
(Patrick, United States in the Air, pp.
190-91.)
38. Charges of…
- p. 770 …y.W D Press Release, 2 1 June 1941.
9 1 . AR 95-5, 3a.
92…
- p. 857 …Presque Isle, 344, 347-49, 641, 644-45
Press comment: B-17, 662-63; danger of…
T H E A R M Y A I R F O R C E S I N W O R L D W A R I 1
clusion W P D agreed, at least to the extent of informing the Chief of
Staff on 14 November 1932 that the Air Corps “should develop a long
range reconnaissance plane for use with the observation component of
the GHQ Air Force and for overseas garrisons.” 18-(
During the first half of 1933 the focus of attention in the Air Corps
was on special command and staff exercises intended to test the value
of a GHQ air force under simulated wartime conditions. With authori-
zation from the War Department of 18 January 1933, a GHQ Air
Force (Provisional) was organized and placed under the command of
Brig. Gen. Oscar Westover, Assistant Chief of the Air Corps. Its
mission was to concentrate a substantial part of the Army Air Corps
on the West Coast in exercises to be conducted in the late spring for
study of the problem of repelling an enemy overseas expedition.
Despite rigid financial limitations which forced many compromises
with what was considered desirable (the Air Corps had $19,500 that
year for maneuvers), the exercises proved generally very successful.
General Westover’s report concluded that “all Air Force units could
be concentrated on either coast within two and one-half days, and
possibly within two days should it be desirable to press the move-
ment”; made constructive recommendations for the organization and
command of a GHQ air force as a permanent part of the national
defense; and stressed the need for “adequate and suitable equipment
and materiel” for overwater reconnaissance. The report drew a dis-
tinction between the equipment required for reconnaissance and
bombardment and in the former category evidently assumed that
improved amphibians would carry the main burden of long-range
reconnaissance. It recognized the possibility, however, that provision
of “flotation equipment and special characteristics in bombardment
aircraft” might “enable them to fulfill their own observation missions
in operations over water.” l S 5
More significant was the inclination to regard reconnaissance and
bombardment as the most important functions of a GHQ air force.
“The modern trend of thought,” wrote General Westover, “is that
high speed and otherwise high performing bombardment aircraft,
together with observation aviation of superior speed and range and
communications characteristics, will suffice for the adequate air
defense of this country.” The immediate occasion for this observation
was a discussion of the disparity in performance between bombard-
ment and pursuit planes which raised in General Westover’s mind a
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